Considered and decided by Harten, Presiding Judge, Schumacher, Judge,
and Shumaker, Judge.

U
N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N

SHUMAKER, Judge

Appellant Fraenchot Dion Banks challenges the
trial court’s imposition of a mandatory minimum sentence, arguing that his
constructive possession of firearms while committing a drug offense was
insufficient to trigger the application of the statute requiring the minimum
sentence. We affirm.

FACTS

In the basement, the police found 16,369 grams of marijuana in
baggies. They found approximately 514
grams of marijuana in drawers at the base of a waterbed in the first-floor
bedroom.

Banks kept two handguns, a .380 Taurus and an Intertec 9-mm, in the
headboard of the waterbed. He had
permits for both guns.

Banks had the guns because his home had been burglarized in the past
and he also wanted to protect his fiancée.

After a bench trial on stipulated facts, the trial court found Banks
guilty of a third-degree controlled substance crime and sentenced him to a
mandatory minimum of 36 months in prison because Banks had possession of
firearms at the time of the offense.

On appeal, Banks contends that his constructive possession of the
firearms coupled with his constructive possession of the marijuana did not
increase the risk of violence and did not warrant the imposition of the
mandatory minimum sentence.

D E C I S I O
N

Any defendant convicted of a
predicate controlled-substance crime and who, “at the time of the offense, had
in possession * * * a firearm” must be sentenced to prison for a minimum of
three years. Minn. Stat. § 609.11,
subd. 5 (1998). Banks concedes that a
third-degree controlled substance crime is a predicate offense under section
609.11, subdivision 5, and that he had constructive possession of the firearms.

State v.
Royster, 590 N.W.2d 82, 84 (Minn. 1999), concluded that “constructive
possession is a component of the mandatory minimum sentence statute.” According to Royster, constructive
possession alone will not trigger the mandatory minimum sentence
requirement. Rather, the constructive
possession of the firearm must be such to substantially increase the risk of
violence. In assessing this risk,
courts

examine all aspects of the firearm in possession to
determine whether it was reasonable to assume that its presence increased the
risk of violence and to what degree the risk is increased: the nature, type and
condition of the firearm, its ownership, whether it was loaded, its ease of
accessibility, its proximity to the drugs, why the firearm was present and
whether the nature of the predicate offense is frequently or typically
accompanied by use of a firearm, to name a few of the considerations.

Id. at 85. On appeal, we determine whether the evidence
was sufficient to permit the trial court
to “reasonably infer that possession of the firearm substantially
increased the risk of violence” related to the drug possession of which Banks
was convicted. Id.

The trial court determined that, even though Banks’s loaded firearms
were not present because of the marijuana, considering the amount and location
of the marijuana, the firearms significantly increased the risk of violence.

The firearms were operable, loaded, and in close proximity to some of
the marijuana. Because Banks bought the
guns after his home was burglarized and for the protection of his fiancée, it
would be a reasonable inference that he kept them in a place of ready accessibility
in case of a burglary or other threat to his home. It would be reasonable to infer that large quantities of
marijuana on the premises might attract burglars or other invaders and that
their presence might increase the risk that Banks or his fiancée would use the
firearms to repel them and to defend against the loss of the drugs.

We hold that the evidence of Banks’s constructive possession of the
firearms was sufficient to support a reasonable inference that their presence
substantially increased the risk of violence.
The trial court did not err in imposing the mandatory minimum sentence.